From patrolman to chief, LaBella walks a new beat

Sunday

Jun 28, 2009 at 12:01 AMJun 28, 2009 at 6:00 PM

Daniel LaBella used to get a thrill when his father, a longtime city police officer, brought his patrol car by the house.Roughly 40 years later, LaBella still has the pictures of himself sitting in the vehicle.

- STAFF REPORT

Daniel LaBella used to get a thrill when his father, a longtime city police officer, brought his patrol car by the house.

Roughly 40 years later, LaBella still has the pictures of himself sitting in the vehicle.

Now, since he assumed permanent control of the city’s most powerful police post this month, LaBella controls the whole fleet.

“My father has always been a good police officer. My brother has been an exceptional officer,” LaBella said, referring to Nicholas D. LaBella, his father, and Nicholas LaBella, his brother.

“It wasn’t a joke when I said I bleed Utica Police Department,” he said. “This is my home.”

LaBella’s appointment, which came from the desk of longtime friend and city Mayor David Roefaro, has induced controversy in the community about perceived cronyism and the former public safety commissioner’s level of credentials.

But when the dust settles, the affable and ambitious LaBella, 50, a Cornhill neighborhood native, could command the department until he’s 70, according to civil service law.

LaBella inherits a traditionally powerful role in the city, said former Mayor Louis LaPolla, who served during the tenure of former police Chief Benny Rotundo. LaPolla was the longest-serving mayor in modern Utica history, yet Rotundo’s time as police chief began well before LaPolla became mayor and continued well after.

“Mayors come and go, but the longer a police chief is in, the more influence he has,” LaPolla said.

The police chief will earn $110,903. LaBella said there is no contract yet.

Many sides of LaBella

So who is Daniel LaBella? O-D interviews and an extensive review of his career show many sides.

Virus scare. In the late 1980s, as a patrolman, LaBella was bitten by a man who initially claimed to have AIDS.
Family footsteps. For LaBella, police work is a mark of pride through three generations of the LaBella family — his father worked for the department for 40 years and his brother for about 20 years.
Sheriff’s run. After retiring from the Utica Police Department in 2005, LaBella had an unsuccessful run for sheriff.
Powerful friends. LaBella and Roefaro met during high school and became part of a network of friends that also included U.S. Rep. Michael Arcuri, D-Utica.

“There were a bunch of us … we’re all still very good friends,” Roefaro said. “We all just remain friends through the years.”

More than three decades later, Roefaro appointed his friend to the most powerful law enforcement position in the city, citing his experience and his track record.

The mayor contends the recent drop in crime reflects LaBella’s influence as public safety commissioner the past 18 months. But some members of the public are complaining about the police chief appointment and how it was handled, leading to an effort to get signatures on a petition to recall Roefaro.

Life-altering experience

LaBella joined the Utica Police Department in 1984 as a patrolman, working the streets of Cornhill.
He spent seven years in that position, during which he had at least one life-altering experience.

In 1988, LaBella was bitten by Frank Conte, a Utica man who told police he had AIDS. Conte bit LaBella’s upper leg and ripped off the crucifix chain around LaBella’s neck when Conte was brought from the lockup into the courtroom.

In the 1980s, people knew little about AIDS and how it was transmitted. LaBella said some of his friends were concerned.

Conte was charged with attempted murder, the first potential AIDS patient in the state to face such a charge, and later pleaded guilty to assault. He would later say he did not have the AIDS virus.

In hindsight, LaBella said he learned from the experience, as he and those around him coped with the possibility, however slim, that the patrol officer might have been infected with AIDS.

“It made me reflect on how precious life could be when you go through something like that,” he said.

After his years as a patrolman, he was promoted to investigator in 1991, assigned to the Juvenile Crime Unit.
That’s when police union President Tom Brady met LaBella.

Brady recalls LaBella being a good communicator and able to bring humor to the job — both then and now.
“He doesn’t want it to be all work and no play,” Brady said. “He has a good sense of humor.”

Moving up

In the mid-1990s, LaBella became supervisor of the Juvenile Crime Unit.

Early this decade, LaBella worked as an investigator for the Oneida County Child Advocacy Center, which investigates sex crimes against children.

Those were some of the most fulfilling moments of his career, he said. He spent countless hours mulling over cases, making sure everything was fair and accurate to protect the children.

“You will give respect but the respect you receive must be earned,” he said.

All these years, LaBella also has been involved in his father’s business, LB Security, as vice president and bookkeeper, he said. Today, LaBella retains the bookkeeper’s role but said he plans to relinquish that post soon.

LaBella said his role there wasn’t a conflict with his police work as long as he did not complete any investigations with the security company, which he said he did not.

‘Family man’

LaBella’s younger brother Nick remembers a time when his older brother, during police duty, picked up children from a bad situation at home and was taking them to headquarters.

In the car, the group passed by a fast-food restaurant. One of the children mentioned he had never been there before, so Daniel LaBella took the children to get hamburgers, his brother said.

“That’s the type of person he is — very down to earth,” Nick LaBella said.

The same kind of compassion holds true for his family and friends, too, Nick LaBella said.

“He’s a family man,” he said of his brother, who has four daughters and one son.

“Danny has a characteristic in his personality – he’s good at bringing people together. He’s a peacemaker,” he said.

Daniel LaBella also helps bring the union and city officials together, Brady said.

“He works things through,” he said. “His heart is in the right place.”

Run for sheriff

LaBella retired from the police department in 2005. From there, he stepped into the public eye in a major way — for both successes and failures.

His reason for retiring?

“Part of me wanted to run for sheriff,” he said. “It was a time in my life that I said, ‘OK, 20 years is good.’ There was an opportunity for sheriff, and I was satisfied with the decisions I made.”

In 2005, he successfully ran for a county Legislature seat against former mayor LaPolla.

And in 2006, he ran unsuccessfully for sheriff against incumbent Daniel Middaugh. The vote was so close that on Election Night, LaBella was leading. But Middaugh won after a final count that included absentee ballots.

Unforeseen circumstances

In 2008, LaBella was appointed Utica public safety commissioner and acting police chief by Roefaro. Coming back to the department was not something LaBella said he planned on.

“No, the chain of events that led me here, I never predicted that. When I left in ’05, I never said, ‘Someday I’ll be public safety commissioner,’” he said.

Amid controversy about his civil service test and score, he was appointed Utica police chief this month by Roefaro.

Deputy Chiefs Mark Williams and Michael Bailey were passed over for LaBella’s appointment, as was Captain John Toomey, who scored far higher than LaBella on the exam they both took.

After Roefaro’s announcement, Williams told the O-D he pulled his own name out of the running, even before he received his civil service score in the mail.

Former Deputy Police Chief Pasquale Benzo said he believes in employees working their way up the ladder.
“That’s why you have the stages that people work at,” he said.

Still, Benzo, who oversaw LaBella for years, said the chief is a “very good police officer and investigator.”
“When he worked for the police department … he did a nice job,” he said.

Balancing act

Experts say a police chief’s job is a balancing act, requiring a focus on administrating the department while keeping track of the prevailing political winds.

“Those who understand that best will serve the longest probably in their jobs,” said John Grebert, executive director for the New York State Association of Chiefs of Police.

It requires energy to attend community meetings and the vigilance to understand you are subject to scrutiny, said Grebert, also a former police chief of Colonie, near Albany.

“You’re in a fishbowl,” Grebert said. “People are much more likely to question something that you do than they have in the past.”

All of those elements exist in Utica, where the police chief is responsible for law enforcement and how to reduce crime, which has been a serious factor in recent years, LaPolla said.

Crime is down 23 percent this year through April. Keeping those numbers declining and ramping up the impact of the police force in the community is what LaBella said he intends to do in coming years.

“I like coming back in the position of public safety commissioner, and now obviously chief for the last year, in a sense that you have a greater say in which way the department is heading,” LaBella said.

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